Images for a Generation Doomed: The Films and Career of Gregg Araki

by Kylo-Patrick R. Hart

Over the past two decades, independent director Gregg Araki has emerged as one of the most intriguing auteurs of contemporary U.S. cinema. A leading figure of the New Queer Cinema movement of the early 1990s, Araki is known for his innovative, eye-opening, and at-times-controversial films aimed primarily at queer audiences. Images for a Generation Doomed: The Films and Career of Gregg Araki explores the films and career trajectory to date of this New Queer Cinema pioneer. Offering in-depth analyses of films such as The Living End, Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation, Nowhere, and Splendor, Kylo-Patrick R. Hart demonstrates how, over the course of the 1990s, the director's cinematic offerings became increasingly devoid of their early subversive potential. Hart goes on to argue that as the 1990s progressed, Araki's films were largely irrelevant to the cultural project of providing groundbreaking on-screen representations of non-heterosexual individuals living in the age of AIDS. However, Hart sees Mysterious Skin as evidence of Araki's successful attempt at reestablishing his cinematic and cultural relevancy in relation to the approaches and subject matter of contemporary queer cinema in the new millennium.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

148 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2009

Reviews

[Petty Lisbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've only seen the three Teen Apocalypse Trilogy movies (which inspired one of my book shelves, ha) but I generally just had those on in the background while pretending to clutch my pearls when I'd turn to the screen and see some combination of sex and violence. This was an interesting look at someone who I initially just thought of as someone who tried to be edgy for the sake of edgy (like Skins) but it was interesting learning about the historical context of these films. I thought it was interesting how he tracked Araki's journey from film to film instead of looking at each movie as its own work, but I think it was pretentious to just act like "Araki was only on a downward spiral from his first film, and everything after was heavy handed or tried too hard to be mainstream".

I thought it was interesting how he ignored race for James Duval's casting, especially with Gregg Araki himself being Asian. I can't find the exact quote, but I think he described BDSM as a form of non-heterosexuality somewhere, which feels inappropriate. If you can expand the LGBT community into different sexual habits, then you can definitely write about race.

I'd like to see him talk about Araki's failed MTV pilot from 2000 and his choice in the shoegaze soundtracks, but that was more for me than for thinking it would make the book more interesting.

I felt that the author was unnecessarily biphobic about Araki's personal life. Was he using "gay" as a general describer for non straight? Maybe. But I feel like people from that generation wouldn't know all the terms about sexuality to properly describe themselves, and even then, if someone was gonna use the LGBT community to make a quick buck and get famous, YouTube would be a lot easier than making these types of movies.

[t · Rating 4 out of 5]

love the araki info ! lots of summary of the films tho that didn’t seem necessary

[Shant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun fact: I found the concluding essay on its own some time this year through Ebsco host.

This was a pretty good look at Araki's movies, considering how there's kind of a lack of literature on the topic. How much you like this book depends on how much you like Araki's work or at least appreciate the idea of. A lot of it was summarizing the movie, which I appreciated because the movies were kind of hard to follow due to volume, or hard to pay attention to.

I wish they mentioned stuff about the soundtracks of his work, or had more biographical details about Araki. If this was a collection of essays by different authors, I would probably have expected that more.

[fr3f4ng · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting takes on Gregg Araki’s films. Very repetitive ideas towards his films and not much analysis. One chapter was mostly a summary of a film which was unnecessary considering most people reading this book have most likely seen Araki’s films. Personally I feel like this book was slightly pointless but I’m always intrigued by other people views on his films.

[Camryn]

interesting but there was so much summary and so little analysis that i did not know what the point really was